rules and peaches

Subgroups are part of a bigger group or else they would just be groups.  The important thing is that beyond an elastic number there is a point where you have to make rules and establish a hierarchy so that things will run smoothly. 

I expect this is because now you are dealing with strangers.  I suppose there are gradations between strangers.   There is the absolute stranger who is a guy you have never seen or heard of before, and there is the guy you have seen around or who is the brother of somebody you know, but let's stick with the absolute stranger.  If you are hunting with your pals everybody kind of knows what to do, but if you are hunting with strangers there have to be rules and to keep things fair they would be written by an impartial high committee of the meta tribe. 

People that live in small towns are generally fans of that experience.  How warm is the embrace of neighbors, all smiling at each other and helping each other out.  But sometimes, especially if they are out of sync with the mores of the town, they feel stifled.  It can be a pain in the ass to be nice all the time, but if you aren't in the mood that day, or maybe you don't like that particular person, you still have to be nice because otherwise they will tell everybody and they will like you less, and things will go harder for you. 

In big towns when you are out on the street you are mostly surrounded by strangers, so really you can do whatever you want, nobody will tell anybody else, because who cares what some stranger did.  On the other hand if you get into some kind of trouble, say you faint by the side of the road, since you are a stranger they are more likely to pass you by and leave you to whatever becomes of people who lie by the side of the road. 

But what about if somebody punches you in the mouth and steals your wallet?  In a small town everybody will know about it, and they will probably take some kind of action to redress the wrong, and the miscreant will suffer.  But if the same thing happens in a big town who cares if some stranger punches another stranger and takes their money?  Nobody.  But in general nobody wants to live in a town where this happens regularly so rules have to be made to prevent it, and rules to enforce it, and rules as to how the enforcers behave.

There, I think I've gotten to what I wanted to say about Dunbar's number and the rise of civilization.  It's a little ragged and I've rambled a bit, but I'll let it stand for this post. . 


A friend of mine posted a bowl of peaches on fb.  Well not any peaches, Michigan peaches she went out of her way to say,  That reminded me of that famous Seinfeld episode (they are all famous) about Mackinaw peaches.  So is Michigan a big cheese state?  What about  Georgia?  How can two states so far apart both brag about their peaches?